Chapter 8
Sol didn’t speak much to Alexei in the morning. It wasn’t only that Sol was still upset, though he was; it was also that Alexei remained quiet, struggling to figure out what, if anything, his dream meant. It had felt very real, but he had had realistic dreams before and nothing had come of them. And the fox wasn’t Niki, that was almost certain.
The dream left him in a bleak mood, whether there was anything to it or not. Though the day was already hot and humid, he still felt chilly inside, especially when Sol said he was going out for a walk.
“I’ll chip in to fix the picture,” Meg said. “I told him not to be so butt-hurt over it, but you know how he is.” When Alexei didn’t answer, she went on. “Sorry the thing didn’t work. You know, you can’t predict what’s going to happen.”
He wanted to tell her about his dream, but he was worried she would laugh at him and call him crazy like Sol. Sol would believe him, but the black wolf was still upset, even though he’d supposedly forgiven Alexei. How would he react if Alexei told him that he was having vivid dreams about another time? Jealousy? Smug satisfaction that he had connected with his dream fox, while Alexei’s had told him to go away? Alexei didn’t even know how he himself felt about it, so he had no idea how to expect Sol to react.
Most Sundays, he and Sol would go kick a ball around, and he had little doubt that if he walked over to the park, he’d find the black wolf there. But Alexei stayed seated at his desk, tail curled around his hip, the clean white tip twitching.
The loneliness of the dream and the Siberian fox had sharpened his worry about Cat. He searched online for her friends, but he did not know the last names of many of them, and he guessed that most of them didn’t have computers anyway. It had been strange for him, going from a small town where all the cubs fished or hunted and families shared cellular phones to this country, where his host family bought him a phone of his own right away so that they could keep in touch with him. They also gave him their daughter’s old computer, which was more advanced than the one computer in the Samorodka schoolhouse that the students shared only for research, not communication. These had been startling gifts to him, but to his host family, they were necessities.
As a last resort, he sent an e-mail to the engineer who had helped him get into the exchange program, telling him he was worried about his sister and asking for any help the fox could provide. Then, guilty because he had not kept in touch, he told the engineer more about his life, how he was happy living in Vidalia, he had found friends here and was hoping to become a citizen.
When he had finished typing the words, he stared at them on the screen. They felt false to him, but what else could he say? The truth would be depressing to a fox who had taken some risk in getting Alexei out of Samorodka, even if he didn’t tell him anything about ghosts and rituals. His benefactor deserved to think he was happy.
He would be again, one day, he presumed. After all, he remembered nights in Samorodka when he would lie in bed and believe he would never smell anything but fish again, that his fur would always feel grimy with mud, that he would never be able to tell another boy that he was attractive or ask to hold him. And here he was in Vidalia, smelling of fish only when he helped Meg cook it, with clean fur and friends who thought there was nothing so natural as a boy who loved boys. So surely, the trouble with Sol would pass, and maybe if he worked at it, he could gain the courage to ask Mike out.
It was not precisely when he had that thought, but close to it, that his phone buzzed with a text message. He didn’t recognize the number, but the message started with,
It’s Mike
, so he called it up.
It’s Mike. Hi. Sol gave me your number. I wanted to say sorry if I was laughing at you yesterday. Sol said you were okay but you seemed upset.
Warmth thawed Alexei’s mood. Maybe he would be able to talk to Mike after all. He typed:
Thank you. I am fine, it was just a shock.
He sat and stared at the words, thumb hesitating over the Send button. He could ask Mike out. “Maybe we could have dinner sometime.” No, that was stupid. In all the comedies he’d seen here, people were made fun of for saying important things over text messages. He would wait until Wednesday at the game, or maybe Friday at Playtime. But at least he could say something more, tell Mike how much he appreciated the sheep’s concern.
Before he could add those words, his phone buzzed again.
Kendall says he’s sorry, he thought you were expecting it.
So Mike was with Kendall now. Out to lunch somewhere. Maybe Kendall had made him text Alexei, or, more likely, Kendall had been reliving the moment. Alexei could see him laughing, could hear the sneer: “Did you see the look on his face when I hit him?” And Mike smiling, feeling a little guilty, making Kendall apologize, and Kendall saying, “Well, yeah, if he can’t take a joke then I’m sorry.”
Alexei just sent his message as it was. He would try to get Mike alone at Playtime, ask him for a date. Then he would show Kendall who was sorry.
Monday morning, Sol still did not talk to Alexei very much, and when Alexei suggested they practice that evening for Wednesday’s game, Sol nodded without a word. On their way to the bus, he responded to Alexei’s attempts at conversation with subdued tones, as though preoccupied with some far-off problem. The thick, humid air had them both panting by the time they stepped onto the air-conditioned bus, and the blast of cool air reminded Alexei of his dream again. He sat by the window with his head against the glass, and Sol sat with earphones in, and when the wolf got up, Alexei waved shortly good-bye.
At work, he asked Vlad where he could get a framed picture repaired, and spent the rest of the day quiet. He would have to do something to make things right with Sol, and he had no idea what that would be. Once he’d fixed the painting, he would still need to earn Sol’s trust back. He thought up and discarded several schemes, and left work frustrated, hoping the physical exertion of practice would help.
Unfortunately, Kendall also showed up to their practice session in the park, and Alexei had to wave off his apologies twice. Sol remained quiet, and Kendall’s presence put Alexei back into a dark mood. He didn’t seem to be able to do any of the practice drills properly, especially when Kendall was watching, and he rode home with Sol in silence on the bus.
But at home, a letter from his sister waited on the table.
Chapter 9
June 19
Dear Alexei,
I had to write this letter today so that it would not be one month since the last one. I have received your letters, but without a schoolroom to write in, it takes me longer to get away, and also I hurt my paw after Last Bell and it was painful to write. When I am not being made to do chores, I am given your fishing rod and told to catch supper. Friday nights I am allowed to play with my friends, and that is why I have some exciting news in this letter.
We, Kisha and I and some friends, were in Vdansk, and I happened to be talking about you in a small shop where our friends were buying earrings, when a short corsac fox turned around and said that his son was also in the exchange program. He told me that he is on leave from the civil service, and so he had privileged access to those programs. When I said I wished to join an exchange program as well, he said he would try to get me into one this fall so that I might join you in the States!
Alexei, I cannot express how light my heart was with this news. Things have been difficult since you and Slava left. I have not known what I would write to you even if I did have the time, because I would not want you to worry more. But now I have good news I can tell you! His name is Bogdan and he said that it would be difficult for me to call him as he is traveling around while on leave, but he took down my number and told me he would call me when he had more news about how I could join the program. He is such a nice fox and says that my English is quite good enough to go to the States, that a pretty vixen like me will certainly be accepted into the program. Kisha says all he wants to do is sleep with me, but she says that about every male we encounter.
I spend every moment of Friday night that I can with my friends, because without you, I do not like to be at home. Mama and Papa have changed since you left, and sometimes it is better and sometimes worse. Papa says he wishes you were still here, but only when I bring back one or no fish. More often he does not talk at all, simply sits in his shed and drinks his drink as it comes out. I like those days better. Sometimes when he has drunk a lot of vodka he thinks I am you and once he shut me in your room and shouted for nearly an hour. I worried that the bees would sting me, but they merely went about their business and ignored me.
I wish Mama could do that. She tells me nearly every day what I must do to become a good wife, and I could write out for you from memory the list of available boys to become my husband. You know that there are not many foxes any more in Samorodka, so Mama has written to friends in other towns and tells me of young Shchavlev, the son of the schoolteacher in Kirovka, or young Chistyakov, whose family in Myatlevo regularly travels to Moskva. These are only the two she has been talking about most of the time for the entire year. I will not waste your time reciting the entire list, either of my prospective husbands or of my faults as a vixen of the Tsarev family. Mama likes to remind me that we were once servants of the emperors, even though it has been a hundred years since that meant anything.
Two weeks ago, the engineers returned to repair the dam, but while they were here, a fire burned down Madam Zvereva’s boarding-house. None of the engineers was harmed, but they all left the next day without finishing their work. The children say the fire was started by the ghost of Katya Bobrova who drowned in the river, but everyone else knows it was someone in town. Nobody has made any attempt to rebuild the house. Ivana Zvereva took her mother in, and now she complains loudly to anyone who will remain close enough to hear that there is no justice in the town. Wolverines are never happy, I know, but I think in this case she has the right.
I thought of you, of course, but the engineer you befriended did not return this year. So if the burning was done because of your departure, it was for nothing. Although it might also have been done because everyone fears that if the dam is completed, the fishing will be gone and then what will we eat on the days when we have nothing else? We learned in school that the dam would bring power and money to Samorodka, but it is difficult for people to accept the promise of the future against the loss of the present. They no longer trust the government to do the right thing, but try to make decisions for themselves, and the government is not willing to stop them. This is what Mr. Lanin tells us.
The only other thing I think I must tell you about happened last week. I told you about Ksenia Tsyzyreva, the roe deer who left for Moskva in the middle of winter with the military trucks, yes? She returned last Tuesday and is living with her parents again. I have not seen her, but Kisha says both her feet were bleeding, and that she lived on the streets of Moskva and only survived by doing things she will not talk about. We all know what those things are. Kisha and I brought her vodka and bread and a bunch of cornflowers and we sat with her, and we will go over again on Friday. Kisha wants to take her to Vdansk when we go, but I think she would prefer to be among friends here in Samorodka, where we know everyone and there are no strangers. She says she missed the peace of the river, and I told her I would bring her fishing. We can sit together with our tails to the town and our noses to the woods and breathe in the clean smell of the water (if we sit upwind of the garbage). I want badly to ask her about Moskva, but I cannot bring myself to make her think of it again. If she chooses to tell me, so be it.
No, there will be no Moskva for me.
It will be either joining you, or
It will be joining you, however I must make it happen.
With love,
Cat
Alexei folded up the letter, tail twitching as crazily as his thoughts. He was glad to hear from his sister, but the letter had plunged him back into Samorodka and reminded him that if anything, it had gotten worse since he’d been there. He imagined the burned-out shell of the boarding house, smoking in the town’s streets; he imagined the half-finished dam slowly rotting away because the engineers returning to Moskva reported that the town was no longer a suitable location for it. He imagined the reek of alcohol in his house getting worse—or perhaps better, if it were drunk even before it was set out in open-mouthed bottles. He could hear the buzz of bees, could smell the rotting wood, could hear the shouts and his sister’s cry as something struck her paw. It was no mystery to him how her injury had come about—another thing to hold against his parents.
At least the letter had a hopeful note. If Cat had included the civil servant’s last name or rank, Alexei might have been able to find him and send him a note of support or offer some assistance. He had to tell himself several times that Cat would have told him if there were any way he could help.
His first instinct was to tell Sol about the letter, but Sol was working on his computer, the barrier of silence still between them. He unfolded the letter and read it again and then went to Meg’s door.
“Sounds like her life sucks,” Meg said when she’d finally opened the door and let him tell her about the letter. “Good thing she’s getting out.”
He did not feel like explaining the whole process by which an under-18 student could get out of small-town Siberia. Sol already knew, and would have been sympathetic, appropriately worried at his sister’s prospects. Mike would have been concerned about his family, but Alexei still had the lingering association of Kendall with Mike and he didn’t want to text him anyway; it felt too early to take advantage of their newly-formed phone connection. So he settled for telling Meg that he hoped she would get to meet his sister soon, and then sat in the kitchen with his iPod and headphones.
First he called up the songs from Mike’s brother’s band. They were enjoyable, a little rough but at least as accomplished as any of the metal he’d picked up in the States. But the songs felt shallow, scratching at his malaise without cutting deeply enough to penetrate it.
For most of the year he’d been living in the States, he hadn’t listened to the Siberian death-metal music he’d had growing up, because it reminded him of thirteen-year-old boys drinking, and burning the foulest-smelling thing they could find. But he’d transferred it to the iPod his host family had given him for Christmas, because he could not bring himself to throw it out. Even when he had been reluctantly burning the disk for Mike, he hadn’t listened to the songs. Now he found the tracks easily—one of the few with a Siberian name—and played one.
The deep throat-scratching bass voice above the cacophony of guitars exhorted the destruction of government, of society, of family. They brought Alexei back to a time when he’d half-believed that burning everything down to start over might be the only way to salvage his world. Then, he and his friends—his schoolmates, rather, for few if any had been friends—escaped their life through the raw visceral destruction in the screams, the words, the tortured guitars. Now he closed his eyes, letting the words flow past him, focusing on the guitar and staccato-like drum. The music filled his head, blocking out everything else, Cat’s problems, Mike, Sol.
Unbidden, before his eyes, the image of the fox he’d seen in his dream arose in his mind. The fox’s ears were flat, his shoulders hunched as though he could hear Alexei’s music. Alexei kept his eyes closed, but his fur prickled. The fox’s tail curled upwards, and this did not feel like an ordinary daydream. He had the sense that the fox was trying to say something that he could not hear over the heart-racing, ear-rending music.
He fumbled with his iPod and knocked it off the table. His earphones tugged at his ears and then popped free from them. Plunged into silence, his eyes flew open and he lunged to catch the music player, managing to pinch it between two fingers and then gather it into his paw. Breathing hard, he squeezed the player and closed his eyes again, but the vision was gone.